Trump administration tells judge Congress did not deny border wall funds when it declined to appropriate money for it
By Fred Barbash May 17 at 7:34 PM
OAKLAND In the first court hearing over President Trumps border wall funding plan, administration lawyers on Friday vigorously pressed their controversial argument that Congress did not in fact deny him the money when lawmakers excluded it from the appropriations bill they enacted in February.
To bar spending, Deputy Assistant Attorney General James M. Burnham told a federal judge here, Congress would have had to explicitly say that no money shall be obligated in any form to construct a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. Having failed to do that, Burnham argued, the administration is free to tap funds never intended for border security .
That just cannot be right, responded Douglas Letter, general counsel for the House of Representatives, which participated as amicus in the case brought by nearly two dozen states and the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group. They are challenging Trumps national emergency declaration to redirect taxpayer money for the wall. The House has filed a separate suit in Washington, D.C. No money may be spent unless Congress actually appropriates it, he said.
Letter likened the situation to that of an underage teenager who requires his mothers signature to join the Army but she wants him to go to college instead. He says, Mom, you can just sign this form? And mom walks out of the room instead of signing it.
Nobody can say thats not a denial, Letter said. This is exactly what Congress did when it balked at Trumps request for more than $4 billion for the border wall beyond the $1.375 billion it did appropriate, he added.
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